


Leave You with an Empty Room

by zahnie



Category: Leverage
Genre: F/M, Implied Relationships, M/M, Multi, Road Trips, They are totally together, but they all live together, not the fun kind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 12:20:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7361317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zahnie/pseuds/zahnie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Parker runs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leave You with an Empty Room

**Author's Note:**

> Set post-season 5.
> 
> So, I saw [this photo set on Tumblr](http://felicityssmoak.co.vu/post/146470411670/greedy-hands-grab-what-feels-right-oh-no-no-one) and looked up the song and listened to it about 20 times and then wrote almost all of this fic last night on my phone until 3:30am.
> 
> Title is from ["The Takers" by Barcelona](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_k5iomzVVk).

It all went wrong so fast.

That's the part she still can't make sense of. The wrongness is jagged edges and she can't get it to slot into place.

She dyes her hair black in the gas station bathroom. Her eyes sting. She stares at her face for so long in the mirror that it doesn't look real anymore.

She drives. She goes east and south because there's more road that way. Her ID is one of the ones Hardison doesn't know about. Borders are still a bad idea.

And she's driving Eliot's car. It was a mistake to take it but she'd already made so many mistakes that day that one more was negligible.

She'll have to ditch it soon. The thought is enough to make her drive faster. Two days. How long until they figure out she's really gone?

They'll have each other. They don't need her, not after this proof. Her plan dissolving around them, endangering them beyond the acceptable limits. Not good enough.

She wishes she could lie to herself, pretend she's off to improve somehow. She's just running. Taking her exit, the one she made when she couldn't imagine using it alone.

She needs a city. She'll ditch Eliot's car, leapfrog around town with a few more stolen cars, and then buy a wreck with cash. It only has to get her to the next city where she'll abandon it. She'd hitchhike but she isn't travelling light enough.

Another mistake. She couldn't help taking the treasures. Not _her_ treasures; she left everything of hers but the cash and her getaway bag. She took theirs. Hardison's favourite keyboard, Eliot's entire stash of bracelets, the scarf Hardison wears the most, Eliot's favourite chopping knives, and enough of their clothes to fill a suitcase. Maybe more stuff than that, she hasn't looked at any of it, except by accident, since she left.

She left her official phone on the table in their apartment, beside her comm. That was pretty clear, wasn't it?

She pulls over when it gets dark. Tilts her seat back and tries again to make it all fit.

The first few jobs without Nate and Sophie had worked out. The three of them were a good team. The jump from good to bad is like a badly edited security tape. The cut is visible and sudden. Everything was fine until it suddenly _wasn't_.

There were more cameras than she thought, more muscle, the security was more complicated, people knew things they shouldn't know. Half their IDs were burned and they lost a bunch of equipment. And the mark knew they were coming for him and he was in the wind, along with his ill-gotten fortune. It was down to Hardison and Eliot that they'd even gotten out at all.

That day, while they were still out leaving false trails, she ran. The pressure of her failure was too much. It sits on her chest, pulls her down and drags her feet. She has to be quick and light now. She's alone again.

She doesn't sleep that night either.

Early, she drives to a hotel so she can shower for real. The car is hidden in the underground parking so she can stay for a few hours. She takes everything to the room before she climbs into the shower.

She sits in the tub and lets the water pound against her head and back. Black drips and swirls around her. It's confusing until she remembers about the dye job.

There's a strange noise when she turns off the water. It continues while her hair ruins the towels. She opens the bathroom door and it's clearer: a rhythmic beeping. It's her burner phone. It was dead and she plugged it in to charge before she went to shower. Now it has come back to life and the beeping is notifications.

She picks it up carefully and watches the number of unread texts climb from 67 to 78. Then the beeping changes to ringing. She clicks the talk button and waits.

“Parker?” It's Hardison. Her eyes fill with tears.

She doesn't say anything but he must be able to hear her breathing (or her heart hammering) because he asks, “Parker? Are you okay?”

No, she isn't. Her breath hitches.

“Please, baby, talk to me,” Hardison says. There's at least three days of worry in his voice.

She tries, involuntarily. But her throat doesn't work.

“Where are you?” It's Eliot, his voice breaking in suddenly.

She swallows hard. “I- I don't...” She trails off.

“Are you _safe_?” Eliot asks.

“Yes,” Parker manages.

Hardison sighs. “Good. That's good.” The relief in his voice is hurting Parker's heart. “You scared us, baby.”

“I can't,” she says, “I can't come back.”

There's a silence. Parker should hang up the phone. Hardison is tracing the call. If she hangs up now-

“Can we come to you?” Eliot asks.

She knows he really is asking. They'll stay away if she says no. She takes a deep breath. “I can't do it,” she tells them, “I can't be Nate. I thought I could but I'm not good enough.”

Eliot says, “You don't have to be anybody but Parker.”

“All we want is you,” Hardison says.

Parker closes her eyes. “Okay,” she says, giving in, “Come find me.”

***

It doesn't take long for them to arrive. An hour, maybe two. Parker couldn't remember the name of the town but she found it on the bottom of her hotel bill.

They had been closing in. She should have ditched Eliot's car, or not taken it at all. She shouldn't have taken anything but cash out of their apartment, shouldn't have stopped driving at all. If she'd really been trying to get away.

They knock. Parker opens the door. Hardison's mouth drops open. Even Eliot looks startled. But they recover quickly and Hardison says, “Hi.”

Parker's face feels frozen. She wants to throw herself into Hardison's arms, into Eliot's arms, and never let them go.

“Can we come in?” Hardison asks.

Parker nods and stands out of their way.

“Is that... a wig?” Hardison asks.

Parker shakes her head.

Eliot is scanning the room, noticing all the stuff she took. “Want to sit down?” he asks.

Parker sits down on the floor right where she's standing. Eliot has good timing because her legs were just about to collapse.

They sit on the floor too, the same distance from each other as they are from her. The three of them form a wide-spaced triangle.

“I fucked up,” Parker says, breaking the silence. “I'm sorry.”

“It happens,” Eliot says at the same time as Hardison says, “We all fuck up.”

That almost makes her smile. She pulls her knees up and wraps her arms around them. It's hard to look at them and it's hard to look away.

“We could stop,” Hardison says. “Retire.”

Parker freezes.

Eliot nods. “If you want to,” he says.

“No,” Parker says. People need their help. She doesn't want to let them down. The realization scares her. If she goes back, she'll never be able to leave again.

“You don't have to be Nate,” Eliot says.

Hardison snorts. “We don't _want_ you to be Nate,” he says.

Parker looks at them. It feels like cheating, to have her run end like this. It's too good to see them. She can't concentrate on why she left.

She stands. They look up at her. Her amazing boys. She has to be better. For them.

“Let's go home.”


End file.
